sunrise sanibel hurricane sandy

Our Sanibel and Captiva beaches were pounded by 4 to 6 foot waves for three days because of high northwest winds from Hurricane Sandy so I assumed we would have lots of shells at Blind Pass Sunday morning at low tide. I was wrong… so I kept moving.

Gulf Side City Park showed promise!

Hurricane sandy shells sanibel

It’s always a good sign to see PEN SHELLS! They get washed up first in a good storm so you know that there are better collectable shells on the way. I was lucky to see a SEA WHIP caught in this group of PEN SHELLS. I love these purple ones.

sea whip pen shells sanibel

After walking east only 1/4 mile, we found a nice shell pile!

seashell collecting hurricane sandy sanibel

My first find… a beautiful dark WORMIE!

dark worm shell hurricane sandy

And a candy corn for Halloween. See it trying to hide?

candy corn horse conch

Then I found a TULIP, WHELK and CONCH…

tulip whelk conch shells sanibel

I saw Kim from Michigan find a gorgeous TRUE TULIP rolling in the surf.

kim hurricane sandy sanibel

true tulip kim hurricane sandy

Are you ready to go shelling? Okay, then… Let’s go CYBER SHELLING! Click on the next photo to enlarge this random photo I took of the shell pile. Notice how many beautiful SCALLOPS there are…

cyber shelling october 28 2012

 I think today will be even better but I’ll never know until I get there. As we all know, the beach changes every single day but I think Blind Pass will take another day to load up with shells so I’m headed back to one of Sanibel’s mid island beaches…. like Gulf Side City Park again.

Clark sanibel seashell pile

Hurricane Sandy may be bringing us a few new shells to get excited about but we are very worried about all of you and our families that are up north bracing for Sandy and the “Super Storm” (as they are calling it). Please be safe!

millipede starfish